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35th Congress, ) HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, $ Mis. Doc. 
1st Session. \ ( No. 80. 



BOUNTY LAND TO MILITIA IN SPIRIT LAKE EXPEDITION. 



A . 



JOINT RESOLUTION 

OF THE 

LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF IOWA, 

IN FAVOR OF 

Granting bounty land to militia in troubles with Indians at Spirit Lake, 

March, 1857. 



March 16, 1858. — Ordered to be printed. 



JOINT RESOLUTION to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, 
asking for bounty land warrants for the volunteers on the Spirit Lake expedition. 

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States : 

Your memorialists, the general assembly of the State of Iowa, 
respectfully represent : That, whereas some time in March, 1857, a 
party of Sioux Indians attacked and destroyed the entire settlement 
at Spirit Lake, in Dickinson county, of this State ; and whereas when 
the news readied Fort Dodge, a party of over one hundred men im- 
mediately put themselves under the command of Major William 
Williams, and marched to the scene of slaughter to protect the living, 
(if any had survived the general massacre,) give the dead a Christian 
"burial, and punish the savage intruders ; and whereas this party of 
volunteers endured almost unheard of hardships, being on the con- 
tinued march for eighteen days, crossing swollen streams, marching 
over drifted snow, and over an almost pathless prairie, alike destitute 
of timber and inhabitants, and this, too, in the most inclement 
weather, so cold + hat two of the number, Captain J. C. Johnson and 
William Buckholder, perished, and were lost on the prairie, while all 
underwent almost unendurable hardships, many being frozen and 
maimed for life ; and whereas, by the self-sacrificing perseverance 
of these men, several families in southern Minnesota were rescued 
from the perils of savage warfare, and saved from death by starvation, 
and the victims of Indian butchery were decently interred. 

Therefore your memorialists petition that you give and grant to 
each person engaged upon that expedition who received an honorable 
discharge, a military bounty land warrant, calling for one hundred 



£ S 

Z BOUNTY LANDS 

and sixty acres of land, and provided that said warrant can be located 
on any land upon which the Indian title is extinguished, has been 
surveyed, and is not otherwise appropriated; and your memorialists 
would further petition that the heirs of Captain J. C. Johnson be 
given and granted one section of government land, to be selected by 
said heirs, from any land as above described ; and that the heirs of 
William Buckholder be given and granted one section, to be selected 
by said heirs as above prayed for in the case of Captain Johnson. 

Resolved, That the secretary of state be instructed to forward a 
copy of the above to Congress. 

STEPHEN B. SHELLEDY, 

• Speaker of the House of Reps. 
ORAN FAVILLE, 

President of the Senate. 



Approved January 30, 1858. 



RALPH P. LOWE, 



Office of the Secretary of State, 

Des Moines, February 1, 1858. 

I, Elijah Sells, secretary of state of the State of Iowa, hereby 
certify that the foregoing is a true copy from the original roll on file 
in my office. 

ELIJAH SELLS, 



W92 74 538 ^ 



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